A snippet of my favourite poetry

From The Bacchae  by Euripedes

Translated by E.V.Rieu  Penguin ed.

Will they ever come to me, ever again,

The long, long dances;

on through the night till the dim stars wane?

Shall I feel the dew on my throat, or the stream

Of wind in my hair; shall our white feet gleam

In the dim expanses?

Oh feet of a fawn to the greenwood fled

Alone I the grass and the loveliness,

Leap of the hunted, no more in dread,

Away from the snares, and the deadly press.

Yet a voice still in the distance sounds

A voice and a fear and a haste of hounds;

Oh wildly labouring, fiercely fleet,

Onward yet by river and glen

Is it joy or terror, ye storm swift feet?

To the dear lone lands, untroubled by men,

Where no voice sounds, and amid the shadowy green

The little things of the woodland live unseen.